


And One For All

by ohgodmyeyes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Afghanistan, Alternate Universe - 2000s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Drama, F/M, Family, Flashbacks, Home, Hurt/Comfort, Military, Military Background, Mutual Pining, Not Remotely Political I Promise, Protective Anakin Skywalker, Protective Padmé Amidala, Romance, Slow To Update, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:02:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21798049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohgodmyeyes/pseuds/ohgodmyeyes
Summary: Told he has a chance to help people who need him, a young man goes off to try to make a difference on the other side of the world.He leaves his home, his wife, and the new life they’ve been building together, because he made a promise he can’t break. He’s going to miss her, but he believes in what he’s doing.She is not so sure about his mission, and only wants the man she loves to come back in one piece.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 48
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

A small, aging car painted a dull shade of red pulled up, slowly, to a gate set in a fence. The fence was tall, and tipped with barbed wire— pointed outward, to keep people who did not belong within its borders from climbing it.

As the car idled in the fresh darkness of the autumn evening, a soldier dressed in a set of green fatigues stepped from away small guard house and toward the driver’s side door. He was carrying a formidable-looking M16 rifle.

A hand extended out the car’s window, and produced an identification card. The soldier already knew who he was looking at, but took the card and examined it closely anyhow. The world was not the place it used to be, after all.

Once he had looked it over carefully, he handed it back with a nod. 

“Corporal,” the soldier greeted as the gate opened, and he motioned for the car to go through.

It did go through; it went past a large, grey building set behind a sprawling lawn. The lawn was dotted with neat rows of small bushes, and a single pole. The flag atop the pole was lowered to half-staff, and illuminated brightly by a spotlight, which was set into the ground and pointed upward. 

The car continued around a corner, and down a narrow street lined with identical houses. Each house was small; had a tiny, square lawn and a little driveway, too— just big enough for two cars, if they were to squeeze in tightly behind one another.

Now, the driver of the red car pulled into one of those driveways— by himself, in front of a quiet-looking house with dark windows. He parked; shut off the engine.

The door to the car opened; the tall, broad figure inside stepped out— clad in a shirt and shorts in the same shade as the uniform of the soldier who’d let him onto the base. In one hand he held a large, black bag; with the other, he reached behind the driver’s seat to retrieve a long, straight, wooden sword. The handle of the sword was wrapped tightly in black leather.

As he nudged the car door shut with his foot, he noticed the blackness of the house’s interior and thought to himself, _Of course she’s not home yet— she’s not supposed to be until tomorrow._

Still, some part of him had been hopeful that his wife might, for whatever reason, have returned home early from her visit with her parents— he wanted to have some extra time with her, now more than ever.

He shook his head, to prevent himself from getting too lost in his thoughts of her, and took a short walk up a narrow path leading to the front door of that small, dark house. It was far from luxurious; indeed, it did not even properly belong to them— but in the few months they’d spent married in it together, this house had quickly come to feel like home to them both.

Anakin Skywalker was only nineteen; his wife, Padmé Amidala, was not much older at twenty-four. Despite their young ages, they had happily begun the process of building a life together— a life about which they’d already been dreaming for several years.

Although he did wish she were home with him right now, Anakin reflected gratefully on this as he set down his bag to unlock the door.

After placing both the bag and his sword inside, he stuck his hand back out briefly to reach into the mailbox, which was mounted to the front of the house. He gathered a letter in his grasp and closed the door behind him; only needed to look at the envelope to know what it was. A sigh escaped him as he tossed it onto the kitchen table, which he walked past on his way to the sink.

Their space was small, but it was cozy: Anakin and Padmé were glad to be here.

After drinking a glass of water from the tap— he was thirsty, after swinging that sword of his around— he opened a drawer and retrieved a half-empty pack of cigarettes from it; there was an equally depleted book of matches tucked inside. He looked around himself somewhat guiltily, then took out a smoke and placed it between his lips. 

Before lighting it, he reached across the sink and opened the window that was situated just above it. It wouldn’t much help the smell, but it would make him feel a bit better about doing something that he knew his wife did not like.

Padmé loved Anakin very much, but had been at her parents’ home for the past week, and was unaware that his smoking habit was soon to be the very least of numerous threats to his safety.

He breathed a thick, white haze out in the direction of the table on which he’d thrown the letter, and thought about how he’d already been informed of his imminent deployment. The letter was a formality. While it contained plenty that he would need to know, he took a moment instead to enjoy a unique sensation: The combination of nicotine from his cigarette, and adrenaline still flowing from the Kendo practise in which he’d indulged during his time alone.

A couple of years ago, it would have made his head spin, but by now he was more than used to the effects of each of those chemicals— both together, and by themselves.

After a few minutes’ enjoyment of his guilty pleasure, he ran some tap water over the butt of his cigarette, and tossed it into the trash can under the sink. 

Finally, he walked back over to pick that letter up from the table.

On the front of the envelope were his name, his rank, and a number indicating the spot on the base occupied by his tiny home. Inside, he knew, were orders to leave it.

It was October of 2001, and Anakin Skywalker was going to Afghanistan.

He ran his hand over the short shock of blonde atop his head; sighed one more time before tearing off the end of the envelope. He wanted to know, precisely, how much time he had to pack. He really did not want to go; he’d been married only about a year by this point. The events precipitating his deployment had been extremely sudden, however, and as it had been told to him, he was going there to help— help people, like women and children, who were being oppressed.

Anakin wanted to help.

Aside from the very attractive promise of an inexpensive education, that is why Anakin had joined the military in the first place. He’d not had the easiest of times growing up, and this had instilled in him a strong desire to correct what he perceived as moral errors: To always try to do the right thing, particularly for others. The army had promised him an opportunity to do that.

After skimming distractedly over the contents of the letter, he tucked it back into its envelope and replaced it on the table. He would have a full day with his wife, at least, before being shipped off to the desert. He wasn’t looking forward, exactly, to sharing the news with her; however, he knew that she would understand:

Padmé had always understood him.

He’d known her for a decade, now; ten years prior, he had been placed with her parents as a foster child after his mother died. He’d been nine, then; she’d been just barely fourteen. Anakin did not always comprehend it, but Padmé had seen something special in him from the first time she’d ever encountered him— she loved to tell him so. 

It was why he had never left her mind, even after he was transferred out of her parents’ home; why she had continued to write him letters and even phone him, occasionally, when he was somewhere he could take a call. For the short time he stayed with her family after his mother’s death, she had been his primary comfort. She had spoken to him endlessly, held him as he’d slept fitfully, and stroked his hair gently for him when he especially missed his mom.

To him, she was like an angel— and just as she loved to tell him that he was special, Anakin loved to remind Padmé of just what she meant to him.

Not everyone had understood the persistence of their connection, at first— some people thought it was strange that a teenage girl should be so intensely drawn to a boy of only nine. 

But those people were being short-sighted.

Maybe it was because Anakin really was something special; maybe it was because Padmé truly did bear some resemblance to something angelic— whatever the reason, their bond had never weakened. It had grown, instead, and matured— so much that by the time they saw one another in person again, they were quick to become inseparable. 

This is why they had married so soon after his eighteenth birthday. The shared housing on Anakin’s military base was of great help to them, but it had never been the reason they jumped at the chance to wed.

They were in love; they had been for a long time, and it did not seem to anyone who knew them that they would fall out of it any time soon— if ever.

This was the thought that Anakin sat down in their small living room to try to rest with, as he leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes. He was frightened to go so far away from Padmé; frightened, too, at the thought of shooting humans instead of targets— he was, after all, a very good shot.

 _Humans you’re supposed to shoot **are** targets, Corporal,_ his mind corrected itself, as he fell more quickly than he’d have expected into a deep— but somewhat anxious— sleep.

...

“...Ani? _Ani!_ ” 

Anakin pulled his eyes open to the sight of his wife. She had come home, apparently, while he’d been asleep on the couch. 

“Ani, what’s this about?” She was holding his letter of deployment, but it was not in its envelope. “How can they do this so soon? They don’t even know wh—”

“—Hey, wait. Wait.” He sat up a bit straighter; rubbed his eyes with his palms. “What time is it? How long have you been home?” He paused, and smiled. “I’m happy to see you, you know.”

Padmé smiled at that, too, because she couldn’t help it. The smile didn’t last, however, as she handed him the letter as though he hadn’t already read it. “How long do I get to see you before you’re gone, Ani?”

He almost laughed, but restrained himself. “I won’t know until you tell me what time it is.”

Padmé _did_ laugh, at this, and informed her husband that it was nine-thirty in the morning before leaning down to kiss him. She had known that this would happen; had known that, at some point, she would lose him for a period of time— she just hadn’t thought it would happen yet.

It was too soon after their marriage, firstly. It was also too soon— she thought— since the attacks on their country which had, ostensibly, been the basis of the mission on which Anakin was being sent.

But what Padmé thought did not matter; at least, not to anyone who could do anything about it. 

This frustrated her, and she nearly began to say something of it, but Anakin had reached up to place a strong, warm hand on each of her hips and started to pull her down deftly onto his lap. She wasn’t about to resist his advances, especially not after having missed him so much while she’d visited her parents. 

She had only just found him again, and now that she had become aware that she was to lose him once more, she refused to let any opportunity to provide him with affection escape her— she’d always longed to hold him freely.

So instead of badgering him about the details of his impending deployment, she chose to trust in him, and enjoy whatever amount of time it was they had together before he was to leave. She dropped the letter, both figuratively and literally. She knew the place he was going was dangerous— and hot, and barren on top of that.

He wouldn’t be comfortable or happy; he would miss his wife, and for the first time in months they would not be able to hold one another. It felt, to her, as though he were being ripped away just as they had found one another again— and it’d been too long to begin with.

This was why she allowed Anakin to quiet her anxieties with his lips and tongue, before shifting so that he was gripping her tightly, arms linked around her narrow waist. Once he was sure he had a good enough hold on her, he lifted both himself into a standing position, and his wife into the air smoothly in a single motion.

Padmé laughed; wrapped her own arms— and her legs, too— around him, and for a moment found herself marvelling at the big, strong soldier the little boy who she'd once easily enveloped in her embrace had become.

She was so proud of him. She always had been, because he’d always been this strong— if not on the outside, then certainly on the inside. He didn’t always see it quite as well as she did, but she knew there was lots to admire about Ani— _her_ Ani.

They would always belong to one another, no matter how far away from each other they found themselves (indeed; it would soon be very, very far). 

As he carried her to the back of their small house— and the tiny bedroom which afforded them a much longed-for sense of private intimacy— she buried her nose in his short crop of blonde hair. She breathed in, and savoured the smell of him: His sweat, his soap, and even his smoke— which she typically hated, but was not going to complain about at a time like this.

Padmé wanted as much of her husband as she could get, because he would be leaving soon, and she did not know how long she would have to ration the warmth and intensity with which he was gifting her right now.


	2. Chapter 2

“Maybe if more people wanted to help, things like this wouldn’t happen,” said Anakin calmly in response to his wife, from the seat he’d taken on the small, stone front step of the house. 

It was morning; the next morning. The morning after the single day they’d been able to spend together after Padmé’s return from her parents’. She loved them, but almost wished she hadn’t visited them, now.

“Do you think you’re helping, though?” she asked. “Rushing in there with guns so soon?” Padmé was standing next to him, and his bag. It was not the black one for his Kendo practise, although she wished it were. It was, instead, a backpack much larger and heavier than that one— and printed with a dull, greenish-brown camouflage pattern. It matched his fatigues, and his cap.

“We’re just showing everyone over there who the good guys really are. After we do that, it’ll be easy,” he answered confidently, as he took a long drag off of one of his cigarettes. “Anyway,” he added, “It’s not up to me.”

“I know it’s not,” she told him, ignoring both the smell of his smoke, and the first part of what he had said— for now. “But I promised myself I wouldn’t lose you again, Ani.” She _couldn’t_ lose him again; she had just found him.

Anakin put his cigarette out in an empty coffee can he kept tucked discreetly by the door. He stood, and stepped toward his wife. As he pushed up the brim of his hat so that she could see his eyes, he proposed, “How about _I_ be the one to promise you?”

He looked very brave, and very capable— but she knew that he was scared. Padmé had always been able to tell when he was scared, because he had been scared when she first met him. He’d had every reason to be then, and he had every reason to be now, she thought.

Padmé did not honestly think that her husband’s mission was in anyone’s best interest— she herself was currently a successful student of both history and political science, and she had always held strong opinions thanks to her keen interest in the world around her. When Anakin had first joined the military, she had been proud of him. She knew that he wanted to help people; knew that much of him was motivated by a need nearly as old as he was to be a force for good— a _strong_ force.

She loved that about him.

She also loved having him by her side, however, and now that he was about to leave it for something she wasn’t sure would actually help anybody...

Padmé sighed. “Okay,” she said simply. “Promise me.”

Anakin gave her his best smile. He piled it upon the fear he thought he was hiding so well, and twinned it with his motivation to do right by the world. It was a drive he had partly on account of so few people ever having done right by him— until he had met his wife, of course.

She had protected him when he needed protecting; when he had been small, and terrified. Even she didn’t entirely realize how much their connection had helped him grow into the man standing in front of her, now— a man who wanted to fix things, and be a good person.

Anakin had always liked fixing things, she thought. Of course he would try to fix something like this.

He grasped her shoulders first; squeezed them warmly. He stared down at her, and said solemnly, “I promise.” Then, he wrapped his arms around her tightly and picked her up; squeezed as hard as he thought he safely could, and repeated himself into her ear, “ _I promise._ ”

Padmé was still frightened, and still very skeptical, but this made her feel a little bit better.

Anakin had never broken a promise to her— not once, in ten years.

...

“This isn’t my unit, Sir.”

“Of course it’s not. Too busy with that wife of yours yesterday to really read that letter, weren’t you, Corporal?”

Anakin had been, but he certainly wasn’t about to say so. “The Corporal does not understand, Sir,” he ventured very formally, and also carefully. He wasn’t speaking to an officer he very knew well, after all: His own commander since he had completed his basic training had been Major Ben Kenobi, but Major Kenobi was nowhere to be found. There was only this man, stepping toward him; a commander of even higher rank, whom Anakin knew by sight and not much else. 

“You _are_ Skywalker, aren’t you?” Now that Anakin was closer, he could read “M. WINDU” on the officer’s name badge.

“Yes, Sir,” he answered. 

“You’re here because of your accuracy, soldier, and your technological proficiency. Ben says he’s never seen anything like you. You’ll rejoin your own unit when they set up the base in Kandahar— but first, we have to _take_ Kandahar. You’re here to help us with that.” This new commander drew back his own shoulders; looked Anakin over carefully. He did not seem particularly impressed as he added, “Don’t make us regret taking you along, Corporal.”

“Of course not, Sir,” he responded, as the officer turned away to tend to other matters. Anakin did not relax, or turn to look around himself, until he was safely out of his superior’s sight.

He was, now, on the tarmac of an airport to which he’d been driven by an escort in a Jeep— by himself. Now he was realizing, as he gazed about, that most of the other men in uniform here were near-strangers to him. He also noticed that they were better-trained, of higher rank, and— for the most part— all at least five years older than he was. 

Anakin was starting to feel as though this mission might be a bit above his pay-grade, but he was here, and that was that. If Major Kenobi— and this new commander, Windu— thought he should be, then that was all the reason he needed to try to prove them right.

Since he was outdoors, and a few others were doing the same, Corporal Skywalker slid a single cigarette (he had been saving it for a moment just like this one) out of the front pocket of his fatigues, and lit it with a badly-scratched up, refillable chrome lighter he always carried with him while in uniform. 

He almost thought about Padmé, because he wasn’t thinking about anything else, but he stopped himself because he was not yet ready to begin missing her. Instead, he filled his mind with exploding mannequins, and paper soldiers riddled with bullet holes— Anakin filled his mind with thoughts of his training.

Even he had no choice but to acknowledge that he was an incredible shot, with just about any weapon anyone had ever placed in his hands. He was, however, particularly attached to his M16; could likely have taken it apart, cleaned it, reassembled it, and loaded it again blindfolded. This was the weapon with which he was most intimately familiar.

On his dress uniform, he typically wore his marksmanship qualifications: Small badges which looked a bit like crosshairs, with clasps beneath them indicating the weapons with which he’d achieved proficiency. Anakin always qualified ‘Expert’, and had more clasps for more different kinds of guns than he could wear on his uniform at once.

He’d have been lying if he’d said he didn’t enjoy shooting, or if he’d said he wasn’t proud of his skill. However, he still preferred the smooth motions and sharp, precise sounds made by his shinai sword at home to the rough acrimony of any gun he’d ever tried out.

His mind drifted, next, to ‘kill-houses’, or the structures in which he had trained for close combat, and combat indoors. He had learned how to shoot and reload while dodging fire, and how to differentiate between targets and innocents (also, when and how _not_ to). He was glad he had: He knew that this kind of fighting was likely to be a reality for him. The bombs, in Afghanistan, had already been dropped— he was going onto the ground to take it once and for all. 

The ground, he knew, was unpredictable by its nature.

He was sure that this training had all been more than enough to prepare him for the coming days, because he had been told so. He also knew that the judgement of someone much more experienced than he was had placed him where he currently found himself— and that helped calm him significantly, as he stood on the runway and waited.

He was taking a chartered flight on a civilian plane, which would land on a military base in a friendly country, on the other side of the world.

After that, he was to board a larger, more heavily armoured aircraft with the men surrounding him— and jump, literally, into what was now enemy territory.

That, thought Anakin as he stepped on his cigarette, was where the fun would really begin.

...

“Remember that fucker? Jerry?” Anakin was sitting beside another soldier on their chartered flight; the one who had just asked the question. With their gear and their uniforms, all of these men made the space inside the plane seem incredibly small.

“Yeah, I remember Jerry.” Anakin knew him well. ‘Jerry’ was a paper target; a depiction of an angry, charging German soldier on which the young Corporal had unloaded many rounds over the course of his time in the army. Jerry was still in use, more than half a century since Anakin's country had moved on from fighting the fascists he represented. He must have been cheap to keep printing.

“Well, Corporal, these guys are all Jerry.” All of them? He knew they were to take a compound on their arrival, but the reality of that statement was stark.

“What if they try to talk to me?” He knew he was to gather information, if he could.

“You know any languages?”

“Just this one.”

“Then to you, they’re all Jerry,” the other soldier said, as he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

“...Okay,” answered Anakin, before doing the same.

...

Padmé stood in the living room of the house, just having turned off the news on the radio. She was tired of hearing it; she already knew what she thought of the only thing anyone was talking about, and could only begin to figure out what she was going to try to do about it.

She looked around herself; saw her husband’s sword and bag sitting by the front door. She walked over to the pile, and picked up the shinai. It was long, smooth, hewn of bamboo, and very light in colour— with the exception of its black leather handle.

 _This suits him better than his gun,_ she thought of the wooden weapon, as she also considered the intimidating-looking rifle on which he’d completed the bulk of his training. He was proficient with both of these kinds of weapons— but he preferred one vastly over the other, and he had to leave that one at home.

She’d been about to put the bag and sword in the closet, to keep them safe while he was gone. 

However, as she thought of the way he looked when he swung the shinai— and not just his arms or his chest, but the look on his face that told her he was both present and calmly content— she decided that she would leave them where they were.

For now, at least, she was going to pretend he might walk in the door to retrieve them for practise at any moment— and then come home sweaty and tired and in need of her company.

She was going to miss Anakin’s company.

She was going to miss it so much that she could not even bring herself to throw away the mostly-empty pack of cigarettes she knew he was keeping in a drawer in the kitchen. She did not like them, or that he liked them— and anyway, they wouldn’t be any good anymore by the time he came home. He wasn’t going to want a stale smoke.

This was, however, why she left them— as she left the sword and bag. Padmé wanted to pretend, for as long as she could, that her husband was still close enough to maybe need the things he used everyday sometime very soon.

That was the thought she let drift away from her, as she changed her mind about the radio and turned it back on, because she needed to listen to something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My iPad died while I was writing this. I fixed stuff, just now, on a literal computer and now I feel like I'm in 2001, too.


	3. Chapter 3

The scent of the Indian Ocean was like nothing Anakin had ever experienced— he’d never been to the sea, even at home. For the brief time he waited there, on a floating base made of an intimidating ship, he mostly stood and looked out at the water. Salt and exotic foliage permeated his senses between plumes of both his own and others’ smoke, and it was difficult to tell the difference between water and sky the further into the distance he looked.

The land near the base looked beautiful, but that beauty was not to be enjoyed by anyone stationed on it today. 

It had been mid-morning local time after fifteen hours of flight when they had finally arrived. Anakin had spent most of that flight mired in an uneasy sleep. He’d talked a bit more to the man beside him, but not about anything that one wouldn’t have expected— idle chit-chat, despite (or perhaps because of) their circumstance.

It was early afternoon now, and they were readying themselves to leave again. The layover had been very short, but Anakin appreciated the opportunity to gather his thoughts.

He missed his sword, he mused, but was very happy to see his gun again as he was ordered to get prepared to pile into a large, powerful airplane— much less comfortable than the commercial jet which had carried him here from home, but very well-suited to its purpose.

Anakin was familiar with the enormous MC-130 before him on the ship’s runway, because he had studied it— along with its variants— extensively. He was likely more knowledgeable about the way its engines and computers worked than about parachuting out of it; however, he was still confident: He had completed his jump training on its sister aircraft, the C-130. The differences between the two planes were objectively negligible, particularly to a soldier whose job it was to propel himself out of one.

He’d only jumped a handful of times; fewer times, he knew, than any of the other men surrounding him. This made him feel nervous, but he reminded himself that someone he trusted had dictated that he be here. With this, he released his anxiety as best he could into the sea air along with the smoke he was abusing, now, to make himself feel closer to home.

The only things which were familiar to him by this point were his own gear and those much-coveted rushes of nicotine and adrenaline he had become accustomed to imposing on himself. He was still not ready to begin to think about his wife, and anyway— this was not the time.

As he readied himself to pile into the titanic space within this new, war-bound aircraft, he tried to go back in time— mentally— to his own first jump. He could not imagine anything beyond the point at which he would exit the plane, so he stopped trying. He found it difficult to focus, and that even the most recent of his training was starting to feel as though it had happened a very long time ago.

The mission, really, was supposed to be simple: Anakin, along with about two hundred other soldiers with highly-specialized training, were to parachute into an area near an airstrip. The airstrip was part of a compound housing some of the officials they were to remove from power. It was also very close to Kandahar, the city of which they were to help take control, and it had already been hammered mercilessly by bomber pilots who had preceded Anakin’s infantry.

His unit— his unit for now, anyway— was just there to clear it out, if it needed clearing out, and salvage whatever intelligence it could from the wreckage. The young Corporal’s weapons proficiency, coupled with his vast technological aptitude, were in large part the reason he was here. A tiny bit of it, also, was something that Anakin’s regular commander, Ben Kenobi, seemed to see in him. If one had asked Anakin, he would not have been able to tell you what it was. If one had asked Ben, he would have called it an indomitability of spirit: Something which was intangible, yet undeniably present— and which he was very keen on developing in the young soldier he’d trained.

The flight itself was another long one; less comfortable than the last, darker, and more tense. After stepping up a small flight of stairs, Corporal Skywalker entered what would have looked like a cargo bay, had it not been for the seats lining both sides of the wide centre aisle. He took his place on a swath of red mesh, gear and all, and observed that there were about fifty other soldiers surrounding him on this particular plane. That meant there were three others just like it in the air with them, plus support in the form of firepower from heavily-armed escort planes flying high above. (Anakin knew that the escorts would have to be AC-130’s— just like the one he was riding, except with large guns, and only as many men as it would take to operate them.)

Anakin was close to the middle of the aircraft on which he’d been placed; he would be neither the first nor the last to jump out of it. 

He didn’t feel one way or another about that.

This trip was also quieter than the last one, with the exception of a final briefing from Lieutenant Colonel Windu as to the expectations and goals of the operation. Everyone, by then, had been going over these details for hours: They were imprinted into two hundred separate brains, which— if all went as planned— would soon work as one to finalize the capture of a very strategic position, once they were on the ground. 

Anakin was still feeling fairly out of place here, surrounded by strangers on a mission for which he would not have previously thought himself ready. However, he steeled himself against the notion that he did not belong, and reminded himself— again— that if he weren’t supposed to be here, he wouldn’t be.

This aided him in his attempts to relax on this final leg of his journey, which had come up on him more quickly than he’d expected— and he thought he had known what to expect. He closed his eyes once again, even though he knew he would not sleep, and focused himself on his motivation; on that training of his, too, which was now seeming so far-away.

He was here to do something good, he thought, logistics aside: He knew what life was like, generally, for the civilian population of the place he was headed. He was also sure he knew that the warlords abusing that population were responsible for pain and suffering in his own homeland as well. He could not object to the idea of taking them down; was not opposed to his own presence here.

Anakin knew what it was to suffer for someone else’s greed and ire. He had grown up with his mother; sometimes alone (he liked those times), and sometimes not (he hated those). Since he could remember, various men had come, as if on whims, into his only parent’s life: They would typically act kindly for a little while, then begin to abuse either Anakin or his mother, or the both of them. After that, the men would usually leave— if they didn’t, his mother would scoop him up and _they_ would be the ones to leave. 

It was a pattern which first hurt and eventually came to infuriate a young Anakin; by the time he was nearly old enough to start to do something about it, one of those men went so far in his abuses as to kill his mother. At that point— at the age of only nine— he was made a ward of the state.

That was when he had met Padmé, and although their initial connection was not allowed to flourish for long, it was likely the thing that saved him from becoming too embittered or cynical because of his plight.

The fact that she continued to show him love for all of the years following his tragedy only strengthened his resolve to save others from suffering the way he had. 

That was what he was here to do.

If any of the men he was to remove from their positions, he thought, were anything like the men he’d grown up witnessing harm his mother...

Well, then he supposed it was just fine if they all had to be ‘Jerry’.

...

_”Green light, soldiers!”_

At that, the small, red light which had been the only thing illuminating the space inside Anakin’s MC-130 did, indeed, turn green. Corporal Skywalker stood, along with everyone who had been seated around him, and spun sharply to face the back end of the plane. It had been hours, again, since they had piled in— but there wasn’t a person on board who was not ready to go.

Even Anakin— the youngest and least experienced here, by far— did not waver as the the soldiers ahead of him began the process of checking one another’s parachutes and other gear.

“One okay!” Yelled the man behind the first in line.

“Two okay!” Yelled the next, in the exact same way.

“Three okay!” The voices began to come closer as each troop checked the man ahead of him, one at a time— all the way down the queue.

By the time Anakin called out, “Ten okay!” he had once again pushed down any anxiety he might have been feeling about the jump or what lay beyond it, and was simply thinking about the process of getting it done.

Finally, an enormous door ahead of him opened downward, and an expanse of blackness took the place it had previously occupied. It was late at night. Both the chill of wind and the cacophonous noise of the engines were incredible, and it felt freezing cold. He had anticipated these things, but his anticipation didn’t make them any less jarring, he thought, as he stared out stone-faced above the helmeted head of Number Ten.

Corporal Skywalker did not react to his fear.

Instead, he let his body take over, now, to do this particular bit of the work for him: He let his legs move as they needed to move, allowed his hands to clench and unclench tightly of their own accord, and breathed as deeply as the rushing air would allow him to breathe. 

When he finally found himself first in line, he didn’t dare hesitate. At that moment, this was simply because Anakin knew that Number Twelve was behind him, and that Number Twelve expected— needed— him to go.

With one final, deep breath— it felt like hell on his lungs, in its icy harshness— he threw himself off the edge of the aircraft’s back hatch. This was a relatively low-altitude jump, because of the nature of the mission, and it did not take long for his parachute to open.

Until it did, he thought he might throw up— but then the harsh tug of the wind catching his chute brought him back from his nausea, and he strained to squint through the darkness. He tried desperately to see some of the ground that was rushing up on him, but found that it was near-impossible.

Finally— at what could have been, perhaps, the most inopportune moment— an image of his wife flashed through his mind. He wondered, very briefly, if Padmé had any idea as to what he was doing right now— or if she soon would. He knew that she was unsure about this— the whole thing seemed to leave her feeling frustrated, and scared.

He hoped anyway that whatever he had to do when he got to the ground would make her proud of him when he got home. He held onto this thought for a moment, but found that he soon had no choice but to let it go: 

The air was turning warmer, now, and bits of bushes, sand, and decimated buildings were finally beginning to come into his view through the darkness of the night.

Anakin thought about the cold, hard comfort of the gun on his back, and tried to let go of his feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really fun.


	4. Chapter 4

He stood up straight, arms at his sides... with his tiny, moulded-plastic cape adrift in an imaginary breeze: It was a silly little thing, really. It might once have been red, or blue— or red _and_ blue. Most of the paint, however, had been rubbed off of it over the course of several years, and the whole thing was mostly just a grimy shade of white, now. It was likely from a fast food restaurant, or some other such place— some place Anakin might, once, have had an enjoyable time with his mother, as a very young boy.

Padmé toyed with the tiny figurine as she paused tidying their bedroom. It hadn’t been messy, but she had just come home from one of her classes, and wasn’t sure quite what to do with herself. It hadn’t even been two full days yet, and she was certainly not used to her new routine— the one where her husband didn’t come home after work. 

School, too, had been trying as of late. She felt tired.

She’d always loved debating and sharing ideas, all throughout the course of her education. Recently, however, doing so had become both exhausting, and a source of internal conflict: She didn’t think the steps her government had taken in the wake of still _very_ recent events had been wise or logical; at the same time, her own husband was putting his life on the line to enforce that agenda. She hadn’t expected a war before last month; no one had, really— and so she hadn’t ever actually thought about _losing_ Anakin to his military career. 

Until now, his going off somewhere to be shot at had seemed a very abstract possibility. 

Whatever opinions she held on the political intricacies of this particular conflict, how could she even begin to be in support of something that might take him away from her again? In spite of this, she also would never have wanted to give the appearance of not supporting him. Not to anyone, really, but least of all to him: She knew that if he didn’t feel she was there for him, he would be devastated— even if he would try his best not to show as much.

As she fingered the edge of Anakin’s figurine’s little plastic cape, Padmé made a firm resolution: No matter what she thought or what she did while he was gone, she would simply put her arms around him when he came home, and that was it. He deserved nothing less, and there was also nothing in the world she wanted to do for him more than hold him... even if she couldn’t do much else.

She’d been holding— and wanting to hold— Anakin for a long time, she thought: Holding him had seemed a necessity when she had first encountered him; he’d been so scared back then. He wasn’t often scared anymore... not that she could typically detect, anyway, except for when it was especially intense. She still felt she needed to hang onto him tightly, though, and until now, she hadn’t realized quite _how_ tightly. 

Apart from how frightened he had been when he’d first come to her parents, she had noticed other things about him at that time, too. He’d only been nine, and had just lost his mom, but he’d been so sweet; so well-spoken. In spite of the tragedy he’d just endured, he had tried so hard to exert an air of bravery and control (even if Padmé had seen straight through it). 

Even back then, Anakin Skywalker had been the perfect, tiny little gentleman.

He hadn’t stayed with her family for very long, but while he’d been with them, he had often cried at night, and Padmé had always heard him. Typically without speaking, she would come to his room, sit up in bed with him, and hold him until he stopped. They spent a lot of time that way, and it had instilled within her a drive to protect him, from very early on. During the day, though, she _would_ speak to him, and had found he was so smart that it was easy for her to forget both his age, and his level of vulnerability.

It was even easier to forget both of those things now that he was (mostly) grown up, but her motivation to protect the man who was now her husband had never truly subsided— all she wanted for him was that he be safe, and happy. Those things had never come easily for Anakin, but Padmé had also never minded giving him all of the help she possibly could.

It had been such an enormous gift to be able to do it in person for a while, and she hadn’t been ready to let him go again. Not yet, and not like this.

If he were here, she thought, he would tell her it didn’t matter; that it wasn’t up to them. That was true, but it didn’t make this any easier.

He also would have told her he was only keeping her safe, because he truly believed that he was. She thought he could have done a better job of it from home, but telling him this wouldn’t have helped: Whatever he thought, he had his orders.

She didn’t know why she did it, then, but before replacing that worn little toy of his back atop the shelf from which she’d plucked it, she tossed it up into the air and caught it deftly with her hand. It was cheap, and barely had any weight to it, but Anakin had owned it longer than he could remember. He’d left it with her, back when he was nine. She had objected, of course, but he sold her on keeping it by promising to come back and retrieve it from her someday. 

The ring she wore constantly on her left hand, now, indicated that he had more than kept his promise. 

As she often noted, Anakin had never been in the habit of breaking promises... so, for now, Padmé took solace in that. 

It meant a lot to her, and it was all she really felt she had.

...

_Heel-to-toe, then roll. Don’t break your ankles, cocksucker._

Anakin did not break his ankles, but he did curse on impact: So had everyone else, he imagined, but he’d never have heard them. The ground had come up on him as quickly as the plane he’d jumped from had left the airspace. It had fired flares into the sky as it had flown off, to illuminate the area and orient the troops it had dropped. There was another aircraft above it, guarding against any resistance those ground forces might encounter.

No one had to bury their chute, here, though: It was supposed to be safe, and even if it hadn’t been, they knew their presence was no surprise to anyone by now.

A crumbling outer wall— the exterior of the compound attached to the airstrip they were securing— revealed itself in a burst of orange, and the group spread out to begin their journey toward it. They moved quickly, smoothly, and more quietly than someone observing them from afar might have guessed.

Having retrieved his rifle from behind him, Anakin moved with the rest of his fellow men— less himself, now; more a part comprising a whole. He was comfortable this way, and felt much better in the present moment than he had in most of the time leading up to it. 

It was quiet, here, and calm— except for the noise of his own infantry, there was nothing to be heard or seen. Nothing, that is, until a very sudden blast erupted from the distance: An explosion; deadly, accurate, and dropped from high above. The initial air raid was supposed to have cleared the area, but obviously the extra support in the form of those big, heavily-armed AC-130 escorts had not been frivolous.

Corporal Skywalker knew someone had just died; likely several someones, but that was none of his concern: They hadn’t gotten close enough to him to make it so. He hoped that was the last of them, and that this would go as quickly and easily as he’d been promised.

Even if he’d been at home, he’d have been in no mood to go through the kill-house; not today. A nice chunk of time with his shinai, however, would’ve been nice— or maybe even just an afternoon with his wife. Sex sounded good, in fact— then, a cigarette on his front step, by his coffee can. He didn’t miss his coffee can; not yet, but he was starting to miss his wife.

_Stop it. Not now._

No, definitely not now. There was no time to miss anything; not a tin can, and certainly not the person he loved most. That singed outer wall was getting closer— approaching more slowly than the ground had approached, but quickly enough that there was no time to think about anything except for what might be behind it.

_Focus._

Focused. That was easy, all things considered. The wall was immediately in front of him, now, and in front of the men still near him, too. It was just decimated enough that it was relatively easy to climb inside of the compound it enclosed, so that is what they did. Once inside, Anakin stood among a group of his own, looked around, and observed. Their rifles were pointed and ready, but there was no movement, other than from them.

The wall had enclosed a series of large buildings which all needed to be searched, hence the number of soldiers who’d been dropped— about two hundred. The structure outside of which Anakin stood with his group seemed hollow, cavernous, and dead. There were, indeed, a few scattered bodies around him: All clearly deceased; some more complete in their general assembly than others. Some were burned beyond recognition; a few were so unmarred that they could have been mistaken for being unconscious. 

Their sight did not cause any discernible alarm among Anakin or his men; they’d been expected, and were to be ignored, for now. They weren’t nearly old enough to smell, yet. Their compound looked to have been a little more than a third of the way blown apart, and as though it might have been almost office-like at one point: All hallways, with many identical rooms.

Unfamiliar with those surrounding him, but well aware of who was in charge, Anakin looked to the highest-ranking officer in his own vicinity. That officer motioned for the troops to spread out, investigate, and then return. They were only to look, for now. Soon they would regroup; co-ordinate what to collect, and how to go about collecting it. This mission’s primary focus, after all, was to gather whatever intelligence might have been left behind by those they were displacing, and take the land for their own use.

Hopefully, their bombs had spared something gainful.

Anakin, of course, was not privy to the intricacies of this plan: He was a set of skilled hands, a sharp mind, and an even sharper eye. He, more than anything else, was an array of useful tools who— ostensibly— should not even have been here. He would have preferred to work with his own unit, but he’d see them again soon enough. For now, he knew what he was looking for, and so he held his gun tightly as he set off to look for it.

He combed through room after room; mostly empty, many crumbling. There were in-tact computers in some of them: He’d have to remove their hard drives, soon. There were also a few boxes and bags scattered around; likely nothing threatening, and perhaps even nothing of use... but those, too, would have to be disassembled and combed through.

It should have been becoming a bit easier to relax, now— or at least, come as close to relaxing as could be expected in this situation. Anakin, though, was someone who rarely ‘relaxed’ to begin with: Even when he was happy, his mind had a strong tendency to race. It took an enormous amount of concentration for him to focus himself at the best of times, and on top of that, his energy had always tended toward running a bit wild. Things like shooting off guns, swinging his sword, and being deeply in love with his wife helped his concentration drastically.

Being a soldier helped too, and so— right this second, at least— focus came very easily for him. Moving through the space, his eyes took in everything around him while his mind took notes on the same. He was almost to the end of the corridor down which he’d been sent, by now, and he knew he would have to turn back soon. He could hear his own men around him; could detect them especially well through the damage to the structure which had been wrought before he arrived. He was glad of that.

He entered one final room situated at the very end of the hall; it was just like the others, except for the presence of a small rug on the floor. 

That rug made Anakin tense. Nothing else in this entire place had looked quite so intentionally situated as it did, and this made him nervous. Anything so perfectly-placed would have to have been set down after the initial raid— but how would anyone have survived that? Armed surveillance, too, had been constant.

Who was there?

_Who the fuck was there?_

He didn’t say anything, and now— standing just a few feet in from the door to the room— he didn’t move, either. He used his eyes to scan the space inch-by-inch; it was very dark, but he could see well enough: His eyes had more than adjusted to the low light. He had a torch; it was on his back with the rest of his gear, but he didn’t use it right now. 

Right now, Anakin just waited.

He waited for what felt like a long time; then finally, a sound: It came from behind a battered filing cabinet, which he thought had been flat against the back wall. Perhaps it nearly had been, because he would later learn that the man who’d been pressed behind it had been quite thin.

He fired a single shot, straight at the front of the cabinet. The bullet cut through it; it shook, and that man— the target— seemed to stumble out from behind it. A quick flick of his thumb, and Anakin set his machine gun to full-auto. He pulled the trigger again, then, and a festive spray of blood and organs coated the far wall before their source could hit the floor. The sound of the gun going off was deafening, but familiar.

The corporal took a deep breath, registered the sound of boots just like his own rushing to meet him, and noted with grim fascination the shiny blackness pooling quickly on the floor before poor, dead Jerry. He hoped it wouldn’t get on anything he had to touch, but if it did, then so be it.

In the dark, it looked like paint. 

It smelled, however, like getting punched in the nose.


	5. Chapter 5

“Fuck!”

It wasn’t anything close to a traditional battle cry; however, one of the reasons Anakin had taken to Kendo when he was very young was because it allowed him to yell. Even through the protective mask he wore to practice the sport, his voice had always carried well. Yelling wasn’t helping him right now, though: He was locked in closely with his opponent— his instructor— and he couldn’t see a way of uncrossing their long, sleek bamboo swords which wouldn’t cause him to lose the fight.

“You’re _angry_ , Anakin.”

He was. With another shout— this one not consisting of any discernible word— Anakin ceased his struggle against the push of the other blade, and hopped back. As soon as he was free, he moved to take a swing... however, his timing was poor, and his teacher quickly gained the upper hand: As if to make a point, the elder of the two thrust the tip of his shinai sharply in the direction of his student’s throat.

He stopped just short of touching Anakin’s armour with it— but, Anakin fell back anyway, mired in surprise and rage.

_”Goddamn it!”_

“What were you thinking about?”

As he removed his mask and began to rise from the floor, “Nothing.”

His teacher chuckled and countered him verbally this time, “If that were true, then you would have lasted longer.”

“...I need a cigarette.”

...

_I need a cigarette._

_**I need a cigarette.** _

“I need a fucking cigarette!”

Corporal Skywalker shook his head, and rose to his feet. His outburst hadn’t been directed at anyone in particular: There was nobody there. He dismissed the memory in which he had allowed himself to become absorbed, and set down the hard-drive he’d just removed. It was from one of the computers he had retrieved from the room in which he’d found poor Jerry hiding. There had been three machines in there; he’d just finished disassembling the second, and now he did— of course— have blood on his goddamned fingers.

That was why he’d been thinking about Kendo instead of what he’d actually been doing, and it was also why he needed a cigarette right now. He didn’t have any on his person, and he was mostly alone in this section of the compound. There was no danger, here— anyone who could have posed any was dead by now, partly thanks to him.

A group of his own men had run to him not long after hearing the spray of bullets he’d released from his gun. Somewhat anticlimactically, he’d received a pat on the back for the effort he’d expended by pulling his trigger, and swift orders to collect anything from the room which might be of use, intelligence-wise. That had been it, for now.

Anakin wiped his hands on his uniform, although they were already dry. He’d taken the computers into the corridor to look at them, because the man who had been hiding behind the cabinet was still splayed on the floor of the room. If the corporal didn’t have to look at him yet, he didn’t particularly want to. Presently, he peered in anyhow.

“Got a smoke, Jerry?”

Predictably, there was no answer.

If Jerry did have a pack of cigarettes on him, of course, Anakin wasn’t interested in them in their current state. But if the unfortunate man _had_ been a smoker, and if he _had_ been in any way similar to the person whose gun had cut him in half...

“That’s alright,” he said in response to Jerry’s silence. “I’m just going to check your drawer, okay?”

There had been a desk pressed up against another wall; one of the computers had been sitting on it, in fact. Anakin had taken that machine first, because it had been clean; however, he hadn’t gone through the drawers yet.

There were papers, written in a language or languages Anakin could not discern. There were pens, some of which looked fancy and intricate. There were a few stray floppy disks and CDs strewn around the bottom, too, and he pocketed those. Finally, tucked away close to the back of the drawer, he found what he’d been looking for: A half-empty pack of cigarettes.

“Bingo,” said Anakin. Then, “Thanks, Jerry,” as he walked back out into the hallway, glimpsing as little of his new smoke-buddy as he possibly could.

Once he was back out in the corridor, he tilted upward the torch he’d been using to see the computers in the dark, and pulled his favourite lighter out of his breast pocket. He’d only taken about three drags off of his hard-earned prize when he heard a single set of boots approaching him.

“Taking a smoke break, Soldier?”

Anakin turned to see Lieutenant Colonel Windu, who looked as unimpressed with him right now as when he’d met him on the tarmac back home.

“Not a long one, Sir,” the younger man answered swiftly, as he tossed his smoke to the floor and stamped it out with his boot. 

He must have betrayed a hint of his nervousness, because the officer shook his head and admonished him, “Calm _down_ , son. Did you know I told your commander I thought you were too high-strung for this mission?”

Anakin had absolutely no idea as to where Lieutenant Colonel Windu would have come under that impression; he had never served directly under him before, and the two were not especially familiar with one another. However— although Corporal Skywalker would likely have preferred to call himself ‘energetic’ or perhaps ‘passionate’— his new commander’s evaluation of his personality was not incorrect.

It had never made him behave fearfully; at least, it hadn’t for a long time— but his near-constant, crackling anxiety did show through in his actions; his body-language: The way he set his jaw as he clenched his cigarette tightly between his lips; the way he never _quite_ relaxed his shoulders. Even to see him march, shoot, jog, or perform drill, any astute observer would have been able to deduce that there seemed to be something inside Anakin which always needed to be kept tamped-down.

It must have been visible now, although Anakin thought he’d been doing well under the circumstances. Lieutenant Colonel Windu made him more jittery than he’d normally have been; he was still looking forward to rejoining his own unit.

“Just jet-lagged, Sir,” Anakin excused himself. 

The officer ignored it. “I heard you had an enemy casualty.”

“In that room, Sir.”

After sticking his head inside of ‘that room’ and surveying the scene, “Did he say anything?”

“Not a word, Sir.” 

Windu nodded, and then finally offered an expression of approval in the form of, “Good work taking care of that sneaky bastard, then, Soldier,” followed by, “How’s the technical work coming along?”

“Two out of three machines taken apart, and I’ve got a handful of discs in my pocket, Sir.”

“Finish up with the third, and bring everything outside. You’ll head back in for more later. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir.”

The commander began to walk away down the corridor. Before he did, however, he looked back in Anakin’s direction and added, “You earned that smoke break, by the way,” which was nearly enough to make the corporal smile.

He didn’t smile, though— instead, he pulled Jerry’s cigarettes back out of his pocket, and tried once more to enjoy a few minutes of pilfered peace before venturing to get his fingers sticky again.

While he attempted to relax, he tried once more to think about swinging his sword around. That was a good choice; it took him far enough away from where he was that he could gather himself; however, not so far that he might begin to think about something stupid, like missing his wife, or his old coffee can. Again, it wasn’t time to begin missing things yet... although somehow, the sheer physical distance between himself and what he loved seemed to make the time he’d spent away from it all seem as though it had been much longer. He should have anticipated that, but he hadn’t.

As his tobacco burned, he reminded himself (without exactly meaning to) of that first chunk of time he’d been away from Padmé— the near-decade she’d spent being a smile stuck in his head, or an occasional voice at the opposite end of a long-distance phone call. He’d survived that; _they’d_ survived that... and they’d done it against all odds. Logic dictated that they never ought to have reconnected; certainly, that they never ought to have married. They had, though, and being deeply enough in love to miss one another was a luxury, even though it didn’t feel like it right now.

Anakin hadn’t meant to let his mind wander quite so far, but now that it had, he found himself more at-ease than he’d been since boarding that first charter flight less than three days prior. It hadn’t been that long ago, objectively speaking, but right now it felt like an eternity. 

_That’s enough._

It was. He’d started to make himself feel better unexpectedly; too much more, however, and he’d segue into feeling worse again.

_It doesn’t matter how you feel right now._

And it didn’t— if there’d been a thing other than shouting which had drawn Anakin initially to the sport of Kendo, it was its unique ability to clear his mind the way nearly nothing else could. It enabled him to quiet thoughts of his mother’s memory; of Padmé, too, which was a feat in itself. It would have been very useful for him to be able to enter that headspace right now... and prior to Jerry, he’d nearly been there.

The cigarette had helped, but it seemed that the most effective course of action for Corporal Skywalker to take right now would be to simply get back to his work: The sooner he did, the sooner it would be over with. So, he knelt back down to the floor and his fingers went deftly to task on the computers whose data he was to deliver to Lieutenant Colonel Windu. As his hands did their job, he considered what time he thought it might be— the sun would be rising soon, and Anakin had never seen the sun rise over the desert before. He wondered first if it would be pretty; then, he wondered why he cared.

After that, he wiped his hands on his fatigues; once again, to little avail. It didn’t matter, though; it was only a bit of blood. The more effectively he completed his mission, he thought, the less time it would ultimately take for him to be shipped back home to the person he loved the most. He didn’t really have nearly so much control over the situation, of course, but it certainly didn’t hurt him to pretend; not right now.

It helped him as much as Jerry’s cigarette had, in fact: Because even if it didn’t always serve him well to think of her, Padmé had been Anakin’s primary motivation for a very long time, in just about everything he did— before he’d taken up smoking or the army, or even Kendo. He needed her just as much here as he had needed her when he’d still been back home.

Fortunately for him— in spite of their distance— he had her now more than ever.

...

_”Oh my goodness! You’re so tall!”_

_”Not half as tall as you are beautiful... but, you’ve always been beautiful.”_

_”And you’ve always been a gentleman, Ani.”_

Padmé was washing dishes now, but her mind was not focused on the task at hand— instead, it had wandered back in time. Not _too_ far back; just a little more than a year, in fact: Back to when she had seen Anakin with her own eyes for the first time since he’d been nine.

He’d been almost eighteen, by then; she had already been in college for a couple of years. He’d left his foster parents’ home to move forward with his military career, but had taken a detour along the way so that he could meet up with her. He’d been promising to come and see her for years by that point, and she had no idea what to expect of him, really. She had always cared deeply for him, of course, and she knew that she would be excited to bear witness to him again no matter what... but, she never would have anticipated meeting the strapping young man he seemed to have developed into while they’d been apart.

That he was taller than she was, now, by more than a few inches was surreal in and of itself... and besides that, anyone who might have found it odd for her to be so drawn to him a decade prior certainly would not have thought so to see him grown-up: Anakin was handsome; not only to Padmé, who would likely have thought so even if he hadn’t been, but to almost anyone who had cause to even so much as glance at him.

This had prompted her, of course, to inquire coyly as to whether he’d had any girlfriends yet... although the look of what she could only have described as devastation which crossed his eyes after she’d asked made her regret teasing him. _’I thought about you every day,’_ was how he’d answered, in a voice which seemed to break mid-sentence. Padmé had realized, then, that he’d not been lying or exaggerating over the phone when he had said things to her like _’It hurts to be away from you’_.

Part of her had thought he was just lonely, then; just a teenage boy with stronger feelings than he knew what to do with. To see him again, though; to hear him say to her more earnestly than she thought he knew how that she had never left his mind...

That made her understand that he was in love with her, and that she was in love with him, too. They’d been in love for a very long time, by that point, and so it didn’t strike either of them as being remotely odd that they were engaged to be married by the time their short visit had ended. Padmé’s parents and friends felt a bit differently than she did, of course; Anakin’s Kendo instructor and his new military acquaintances had advised extreme caution, as well.

They hadn’t been cautious, though; not at all, and by the time Anakin had turned eighteen and was planning his final move onto the military base he now called his home, he was somebody’s husband: Padmé’s husband, and he’d never been quite so happy to be called anything else in his life.

Now, of course, he was a lot of other things too, and his wife— who had just dried the last of the utensils from the dinner she’d shared only with herself— was being subjected to the same sorts of feelings she imaged he’d experienced during their near-decade apart. She was sad, because she missed him; however, she was also angry and fearful, because she disdained the circumstances under which he’d been taken from her, and she knew he was not safe.

Because it made her feel better, Padmé opened Anakin’s drawer and stared at his rapidly-drying cigarettes for a little while that night; then, she opened his Kendo bag and looked at those things, too. When she went to bed, she thought before she closed her eyes that she may as well get used to this new normal, because she didn’t rightly know when she was going to see her husband again.

She was comforted by the knowledge (it helped her fall asleep, in fact) that they would at least not have to wait nine years, this time around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is likely my favourite of the stories I’m writing right now— so even if it gets updated slowly from time to time, I can assure you that it won’t be abandoned. I promise that I’m putting a lot of TLC into it. Thanks to everyone who’s stuck around. ✌️
> 
> FYI: I’m aware of the fact that this story and ‘Counselling’ probably don’t share a lot of the same readership; however, fair warning: These two stories are probably going to spoil each other a little bit once in a while. Not because they have much of anything to do with one another (they truly don’t), but simply because they exist within the same time continuum, and feature the same Anakin— just at different stages of his life.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anakin encounters sand.

“Anakin! _What are you doing?_ ”

“Lighting a cigarette— I just built a fucking gun shed!” shouted the exhausted Corporal in response to the distinctive-sounding query of his friend and commanding officer, Major Ben Kenobi. 

Anakin had, indeed, just completed work on a munitions storage unit: He was not far from the heart of Kandahar at all now. Having been dismissed from Lieutenant Colonel Windu’s authority, he’d been allowed to rejoin his usual commander in setting up a base of operations from which his regular unit could work.

The air-strip they’d captured handily with their raid was just fine, but they needed to get closer to the people, now, as they attempted to exterminate the purported agents of terror hiding in the desert around the city. The highly-specialized team with whom Corporal Skywalker had taken the compound had traveled north to try to identify and cut off the source of enemy insurgents; Anakin alone had returned here, to Ben’s unit. They were supposed to be working closely with members of the civilian population; however, he hadn’t actually seen much of the city yet: Just the dusty, dead-looking outskirts of it; a landscape which seemed to stretch on forever. He also hadn’t met any locals— except for poor Jerry, during the initial assault.

The Corporal had never been to a place like Kandahar before, and although he’d probably not have admitted it to anyone aloud, he was very much relieved to be back under Major Kenobi’s guidance— he had served under Ben for what to him felt like a long time, and the two co-operated very well; communicated almost seamlessly. They had been together throughout the bulk of Anakin’s training, and the younger soldier had always felt more comfortable (and more capable) in the Major’s presence.

“You’re going to regret that in a minute,” called the more experienced of the two, in reference to Anakin’s insistence on having a smoke. 

Ben was standing just inside of a dusty-looking tent they’d set up at the beginning of the day. It had shielded them from the sun intermittently as they’d worked, and from the odd swirl of sand blown in from beyond the horizon, too. Ben had been here a few days longer than his younger counterpart; knew that the clouds currently rolling in from the barrenness outside of the city meant more than a mere thunderstorm. He also knew that when the sky began to darken and the wind started to blow as it was now, the smartest thing one could do was to get inside— inside of a building, or a tent, or cave; it didn’t matter what, so long as it was shelter.

Anakin, of course, didn’t know that yet.

“It’s fine,” he said, and he looked up at the sky. “We could use some rain.”

The clouds in the distance were very dark, and the direction of the wind indicated that they should be travelling toward the city. Although it was October, it was still quite warm near Kandahar: Close to thirty degrees Celsius, and more than that in the sun— or at least, it _had_ been that warm before the sunlight itself had disappeared behind the rolling plume of deep grey Anakin was now studying. He’d been working all day, and he was unbearably hot beneath his fatigues— he’d been sweating buckets for a while, now. He didn’t mind the ominous chill brought on by the clouds at all, and he would have been more than happy to get rained on.

Rain, however, wasn’t what was in store for the unassuming (and somewhat contrary, in his unwillingness to take shelter as he’d been advised) soldier. Very suddenly— although not entirely without warning; he _had_ been warned— Anakin Skywalker was blasted head-on by a strong, humid wind... and that wind happened to be carrying with it an enormous amount of powerfully-propelled sand. Its grains were sharp, and so they stung like needles; besides that, it landed utterly indiscriminately on whatever happened to come into its path.

First Anakin spit out his cigarette; then, he spit out some sand, too. Since it was still blowing at him after he’d done that, he did finally run to the tent to join Ben... but of course, he had already taken the worst of the abrupt weather’s wrath. Sand storms could last for a while, but that first big gust was _always_ the worst.

_”God fucking damnit!”_

“Mind the blasphemies,” smiled Major Kenobi. “They don’t take especially kindly to those here, you know.” And they didn’t— the bulk of the local population was very religious, whether it was because they were genuinely faithful, or simply because they’d been told to appear to be so. However, that wasn’t especially relevant to Anakin right now, as he dropped to the ground on his knees and grasped blindly for a bottle of water he was sure he’d left nearby.

Once he’d found it (Ben was actually the one who handed it to him— Anakin just didn’t notice), he splashed a generous amount of it into his eyes, and tried to blink out what the storm had thrust at him. He didn’t say as much, but for a brief moment, the Corporal feared that he had gone blind.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, as that particular fear left him, and he continued to rinse off his face.

“What did I _just_ say?”

“Fuck!”

“That’s better.” After a short pause, “...Are you alright, now?”

“I’m fine,” said Anakin, although he hardly felt it. 

As his eyes began to open up again and his vision started to return to him more completely, he patted his breast pocket; pulled out his cigarettes. Actually, they were still Jerry’s cigarettes— by some miracle, Corporal Skywalker had made the partial pack last more than a day. He had some of his preferred brand, now; graciously supplied by an acquaintance, and tucked away where he was to be sleeping later on. However, he figured that if he’d been in his former target’s position, he would not have wanted his smokes to go to waste if they didn’t have to... and so he kept the man’s cigarettes; had been enjoying them throughout the course of his brief journey to the city. Since they were local, they made him feel a bit less out-of-place.

“I wish you wouldn’t smoke that in here,” implored Ben.

“I can’t smoke it out there!” 

He squinted upward; he hadn’t yet risen from the ground. His commander just laughed at his exclamation, and so Anakin reached into his other pocket to retrieve his lighter... only to find that he’d dropped it on the ground outside. He sighed and shook his head; replaced Jerry’s cigarette in its pack. He reached up with his hand to touch his face after that; his skin felt as though someone had run sandpaper across it, but he wasn’t bleeding.

Then, he looked outside. The wind had begun to slow, but the sand was still blowing. The younger soldier was not stupid enough to go out there looking for his lighter— not yet, anyhow.

“You’re stuck, Anakin— relax.”

Anakin was the one who laughed, this time. “I haven’t ‘relaxed’ since I got here,” he admitted. What he didn’t add (but what they both knew) was that he hardly ever tended toward relaxing in the first place.

“Lieutenant Colonel Windu said you did well— he said you surprised him, actually.”

With a snort, the Corporal responded, “It wasn’t too hard to do that.” He knew that the other commander hadn’t thought much of him, and that had ended up being just fine— Anakin liked proving himself.

Ben only chuckled. Then, as his expression faded and segued into a different one which seemed a bit more neutral, he inquired carefully, “How was the raid?”

Anakin had begun to dust himself off; however, he couldn’t get nearly all of the sand out of the crevices of either his uniform or himself. Besides that, any part of his skin which had been exposed to that first big blast still felt like pins and needles.

“It went fine— we found lots.” They had, indeed, managed to retrieve a fair amount of intelligence; much of it had come from the computers Anakin himself had expertly disassembled, cleaned, and sorted.

“Windu said you saved them a lot of time.”

“Glad to hear it,” answered the Corporal. He’d become somewhat distracted as he peered out the entrance to the tent; was thinking about where he might begin to dig for his lighter when the wind died down. He liked that lighter.

“He also said you got rid of the last of the targets,” recounted Ben.

The younger of the two looked back up at that; finally started to rise to his feet. He couldn’t see himself, but he could feel the grit from outside sticking to him. He didn’t like it.

“You mean Jerry?”

Ben offered a thin smile. “I didn’t realize the Taliban recruited paper soldiers.”

Anakin returned his commander’s expression; answered, “He wasn’t _exactly_ made of paper.” Then, after a pause, “...Actually, I had to scrub him out of most of what I found.” As he looked back outside the tent once more, he added, “...But, he _did_ give me his cigarettes.” 

The Major shook his head, but this time his smile did not entirely leave him. As he joined his fellow soldier in peering out into the slowly-subsiding storm, he offered, “You did well, Anakin.”

With a shrug, “He had to go.”

Ben nodded in confirmation. Then, “There’ll be more of them, you know.”

“I know.”

“None of them are going to be made of paper.”

It would almost have been imperceptible to anyone other than Major Kenobi; however, Anakin’s lip trembled at that— his mouth wanted very much to twist into a scowl, but he wasn’t letting it. 

“No— but they’re all going to be Jerry.”

The commander didn’t answer that. He knew very well what Anakin’s primary motivation had been for joining the military in the first place; knew what he’d grown up witnessing his mother endure at the hands of callous men. He also knew that the nature of the oppression taking place in and around Kandahar was likely to particularly incense him, given that very personal experience. Above all else, Ben Kenobi was aware that his young soldier’s critical thinking skills— while incredibly strong, under ideal circumstances— were frequently overridden by the sheer power of his inner drive. That drive was both a strength and a detriment, and he was still too young to have learned to balance it with the more cerebral part of his inner essence.

They both stood quietly for a while watching the sand; eventually, it did begin to die down enough that it was safe for them to venture back outside. When they did, they did so together; immediately, Anakin began to search for his lighter.

“You’re never going to find it,” said Ben, as Anakin kicked at the sand near the spot in which he’d been standing when he had dropped the little chrome tool.

“I have to find it,” replied the Corporal simply, and he continued to search.

“You can get another one just as easily, can’t you?”

Anakin looked up at that, and this time he could not contain that scowl of his. With more than a hint of annoyance, _”I need a fucking cigarette— **now**!”_

Major Kenobi laughed outright at that— Anakin often made him laugh; typically it was unintentional— and walked off to inspect the integrity of his charge’s gun shed following the storm. Anakin only kept prodding the sand... and eventually, after a bit of digging, his efforts paid off: He retrieved his lighter.

As he smoked the cigarette he’d eagerly ignited immediately after finding it, he began to think. First he thought about Jerry, and a bit about his mother after that. Then, he thought about the sand around Kandahar, and how much he was already coming to dislike it. Primarily, his mind wandered back to that sand so readily because it was an infinitely easier subject of consideration than either of the other two; partly, it went there because the sand really was that unpleasant.

When Ben returned from his examination of the morning’s work, he offered his Corporal a ride in a Jeep— a tour around the outskirts of the city, to both familiarize him with the terrain, and teach him to scan for and assess potential dangers out in the field.

Anakin agreed readily, because that sounded much more interesting to him than either dour self-reflection, or disagreeable thoughts concerning the irritating and unpredictable nature of sand.


	7. Chapter 7

“I’m sorry I bothered you. You don’t have to stay.”

“You didn’t bother me, Ani. I don’t mind.”

Anakin didn’t say anything to that. He really _hadn’t_ wanted to bother Padmé (he’d never liked bothering anybody, really), but he also didn’t want her to leave. He was sitting up in his temporary bed at her parents’ house; she was situated on the edge of it, facing him. Because nobody was there to see him do it, and because she had never minded before, he reached out and placed his arms around her. He rested his head on her chest as he hugged her tightly; listened to the sound of her heart.

He was still a lot smaller than she was, because he was only nine and she was already a teenager— but, Padmé never treated Anakin as though he were small: He didn’t seem all that small to her.

Finally, he’d been quiet long enough that she felt the need to ask, “...Did you have a bad dream?”

He drew back; looked up at her. “Yes,” he said. He had woken up in tears, but by now they’d mostly dried, and his expression had turned almost blank. Anakin was, perhaps, the most stoic child Padmé had ever met... however, it was very clear to her that he was feeling the loss of his mother deeply. 

“They’re all the same,” he said of his dreams. “They start out with me feeling like I can do something to help her— but then, I can’t. When I wake up, I—” He cut himself off and looked away. It was a habit he had developed recently, and one which he would retain throughout most of his life. Breaking eye-contact kept him from becoming emotional; in spite of the comfort Padmé’s presence brought him, Anakin didn’t feel safe enough to be emotional. Not here; not yet.

She peered down at him sadly. He hadn’t deserved what had happened to him... but, of course, no child deserved to see their mother killed.

“There was nothing you could have done, Ani,” she said soothingly. “Don’t let your dreams trick you into thinking any of this is your fault.” During his brief stay with her family, she’d observed that Anakin possessed an inordinately strong sense of responsibility, particularly for somebody his age. It might serve him well later on; however, right now all it seemed to do was make him feel worse. She wished that there was something she could do to help him; didn’t realize just how much she already had.

“I know,” he said quietly, as he turned his own gaze back up toward her. “I just hate that I’m never going to see her again. _I hate that I wasn’t strong enough to help her.”_ He steeled himself against fresh, oncoming tears as he added in a way which served to remind Padmé that he _was_ only nine, “It’s not fair.” 

Since he was correct about that— and since there was nothing she could do to actually remedy his situation— she simply wrapped him up in her arms again and held him until he was calm enough to lay down in his bed once more. When he finally did start to try to go back to sleep, she pulled the blanket up over him very carefully and stepped lightly out of the room.

Padmé might have thought she was only being kind, and really, she _was_ being very kind— however, she was also in the midst of making what would end up being a lifelong impact on Ani, whether either of them knew it yet or not.

...

The sound of the alarm was familiar, at least... even if waking up alone still wasn’t. Now that he wasn’t there anymore, Padmé was somewhat astonished by just how quickly she’d grown used to pulling her eyes open to the sight of her husband’s face in the morning. She turned over; stared at his pillow as if she might be able to conjure a convincing image of him, if only she tried hard enough. When it didn’t work, she decided to rise; get on with her day. As she did, though, she found herself feeling reflective... perhaps it had been her dream; the one she’d had— somewhat appropriately— about a much younger Ani’s own nightmares. She’d never dreamed quite so much since he’d left, she mused; that surprised her a little bit, too.

...But, then, everything about Anakin had always either surprised or impressed Padmé to some extent: From the strength he had shown when he was young in the face of having lost his mother far too soon (and in such a horrific manner), to the vehemence with which he’d maintained their connection over the years. She’d been taken-aback by him quite consistently all the way up to when he had found her again; had finally caused her to understand that she was (and likely always had been) deeply in love with him.

She realized, as she pulled the bedroom curtains open, that she could probably set the alarm clock ahead a little bit: There remained a full two hours before she needed to be at her first class; typically, she’d have spent the extra time talking with Anakin; making up for what they both felt was lost time. Without him here, she found that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself; quickly, though, she began to feel a bit silly for that— Padmé could and would find a productive way to occupy the extra time which which he’d left her; she did know that. The raw sensation of missing him, though, was presently too fresh for her to consider very much beyond having a shower.

It occurred to her on her way to the bathroom that the tiny house they shared together on Anakin’s base had never seemed quite so big as it did right now. He’d been so excited to show it to her when he found out it had been assigned to him that she hadn’t said a word about the lack of space it afforded them; she’d just been happy to be there. She still was; however, without Ani to help fill it up, just how cavernous it felt was yet another thing which surprised her.

She smiled, at least, as she took his towel down from the bar holding up the shower curtain. It was dull-green and not especially soft; had been issued to him by the military, in fact. He liked it very much, and she wasn’t about to fold it up and put it away... even if she was not particularly inclined toward using it. What had made her smile at it was the simple fact that it was so different from anything she’d ever have chosen for herself; it reminded her of how very unlikely her connection with her husband really was, and that brought to the front of her mind just how much it meant to her.

Besides their age difference (which would come to seem less significant with every year they spent together), there were plenty of reasons for Anakin and Padmé to have resisted being with one another; plenty of factors which should, in fact, have forced them apart a long time ago. Her parents had been skeptical of him since he’d come back into her life; partly because they were aware of the level of trauma he had endured in the past, and partly— more simply— because the two of them had come from very different worlds.

Even before Anakin had found himself in foster care, he’d never experienced the sort of middle-class, suburban life which most people who were like Padmé would have taken for granted; Padmé, in turn, had never been subject to the sort of mistreatment to which Ani had unfortunately grown accustomed by the time they’d met. As well, prior to their reconnecting, Padmé had shown no signs of wanting or needing the kind of relationship she now shared with Anakin— their marriage had been a shock to everybody, and considered ill-advised by a particularly doubtful few.

Sometimes their dissimilarities sowed conflict between them, but far more often they promoted understanding; a mutual widening of their perspectives. It was one of the things she loved most about being with him, and she knew that she would have acutely regretted limiting herself by turning him down when he’d come back to her. Padmé had always been someone who enjoyed expanding her mind and her knowledge of the world around her, hence her having become such an avid student of politics and history. She wasn’t someone who needed everybody to agree with her all of the time, and she liked to surround herself with strong people who had strong minds. Even if it wasn’t widely understood by her friends or family, it actually made perfect sense that Padmé would fall fast and hard for someone just like the man Ani— _her_ Ani— had grown up to be.

For all of these reasons and more, she knew that she was quite unlikely to put that green towel of Anakin’s out of sight prior to his coming back, no matter how many times she had to move it out of her way. It was a lot like his kendo bag, still sitting in the hallway with his shinai; it was a bit, too, like the cigarettes in the drawer in the kitchen she still couldn’t bring herself to throw into the trash.

Padmé might not have ever felt as though she truly _needed_ a man in her life before; not in any way that would have caused anyone to guess that she would marry one so hastily. Anakin, though, was far from being just any man. She’d been able to sense as much since he was still only a boy; again, whether she’d actually known it back then or not.

She hoped that whatever forces which might have existed in the universe for the purpose of keeping him safe were aware of it, too, because if she was certain of anything, it was that she needed him back in her arms again. 

Anakin had always been safe there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for waiting for me. Updates on this will speed up a bit in the near-future; eventually, I’d like to cover some of his childhood leading up to Shmi’s death, too, but in a different story. I really like this AU.
> 
> On a somewhat-related note (and because I have nowhere else to share this), I got a Phantom Menace Ani action figure in the mail recently and he’s just so stoic and adorable. I’m going to make him a little bag, because unfortunately he didn’t come with one. :( 
> 
> Back to Kandahar next time to see how Ani & Obi are doing with the sand...


End file.
